Page 2

CHAPTER TWO

The punching bag swayed on its chain, still twitching from the last hit.

Nash Rahim stood with his forearm braced against it, breathing slow and heavy, sweat sliding down the curve of his back in thin, unbothered lines. He rolled his shoulder once, winced, then leaned into the bag and let his forehead rest against the canvas. It was warm. Damp. Smelled faintly of leather and old effort.

His ribs ached. Old injury. Not the worst.

The garage was half-shadowed, the light coming through a narrow window above the bench press and landing across the mess like a spotlight that gave up halfway. There were dumbbells scattered in uneven pairs, a duffel tossed open on a barstool, a half-eaten protein bar on the counter beside a whiskey glass that still held one melting cube. A pair of boots lay under the chair where he’d kicked them off last night, and his shirt hung from the back of a rusted fan currently spinning just enough to sound broken.

Order didn’t make anything better. Order didn’t bring them back.

He pushed off the bag and rolled his neck until it cracked. Then he grabbed the towel draped over a pipe, wiped the sweat from his face, and slung it around his neck.

He didn’t look at the photo taped to the side of the fridge. He saw it every damn time he blinked, eight men in desert gear, half-shadowed by the angle, grins all around, young and reckless and sure there would always be another mission, another sunrise. One of them was him. Three weren’t coming home. He tried not to think about that. Tried harder not to think about the other four, the ones still breathing, still carrying their own ghosts, only a few hours down the coast in Little Creek, Virginia, but who might as well have been on the sun for how far he had drifted from them.

He hadn’t just lost teammates. He had lost the brotherhood, lost the weight of their trust, their laughter, their anger, all the ordinary pieces of connection that used to stitch him to the world, and now felt so far out of reach he didn’t even know if he deserved to call them brothers anymore. The guilt still landed, low and dull, like bruises that never fully faded, not just for the ones who were gone, but for the ones who might still look him in the eye, searching for answers he didn’t have, answers that should have been etched on his soul, written into every breath, every bone, every promise they had made to each other. But all he had was blank space. Silence where memory should live. Some days, that felt like the worst part of all.

Nash froze at the sound, hearing the footsteps before he saw the shadows.

Furtive, hushed sounds. Wrong rhythm for the usual late-night jogger or drunk kid cutting through the alley. Two of them.

The night outside was clear, the air heavy with the damp chill rolling in from the Potomac. His breath slowed. His garage hunched behind a narrow brick townhouse he owned at the edge of Georgetown, tucked off a side alley lined with crumbling cobblestones and skeletal trees.

The house had been in his family for decades, a rare thing now, grandfathered before the neighborhood went to the developers.

He didn’t have neighbors close enough to see anything. That was why he liked it.

He moved without sound, stepping lightly across the concrete floor. His hand reached up and slipped beneath the lip of the toolbox mounted on the wall. Inside was a Sig P229, .40 caliber. Slide already racked. Safety off. He’d stripped and cleaned it the night before out of habit.

The footsteps paused.

Nash waited, eyes locked on the thin gap beneath the side door. It was fractured just enough to see the bounce of motion. Then came the faint scrape of metal on metal.

Lockpick.

Big mistake.

Shirtless, he stepped to the far wall, slipping through the side door into the breezeway, a short, narrow, covered passage that connected the garage to the back of the house.

Cold air wrapped around him, sharp and damp from the river, raising goosebumps on his exposed skin. The night pressed close. He moved quickly, crossing the few steps to the back door.

From the dark kitchen, lit only by the thin spill of streetlamp light slanting through the blinds, he had a line of sight to the garage door. One of them was kneeling outside, tools in hand. The other had moved off to cover, leaner, crouched behind a hedge with a hand pressed to an earpiece.

Pros.

He opened the door fast and quiet, two steps, swinging wide and hard, catching the lockpick’s shoulder and knocking him off balance. Nash grabbed the guy by the collar, slammed him face-first into the doorframe, then pivoted.

The second one surged forward. Too slow.

Nash spun, ducked the swing, and buried a knee in the man’s stomach. He folded. Nash slammed him down on the concrete alleyway and planted a boot between his shoulder blades.

“You break into my garage,” he said calmly, gun now aimed down and steady, “I’d suggest a better exit plan.”

The first guy groaned.

Nash dragged them both inside, kicking the door closed behind him. He trussed them with two zip ties he kept looped in a drawer for moments just like this. Hands behind their backs. Knees on the floor.

His breathing hadn’t even changed.

He turned toward the hall, pivoting, his weapon already on target.

“Still efficient, Rahim.”

Lynne Caspari stood in the doorway, hands folded loosely, eyes scanning the scene with detached interest. She looked more like a diplomat than the nightmare she actually was.

Her expression was unreadable. The kind of face shaped by decades of sending people to do unspeakable things in unspeakable places.

Nash didn’t lower the weapon. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked.

Caspari stepped forward, unbothered by the gun pointed center-mass. “I need your help.”

"You have a strange way of showing it."

She glanced down at the two men breathing hard on his floor. One had a bloody lip. The other was trying to slow his breathing.

"Can I?—"

"No," Nash cut in. "Talk. Or get the hell off my property."

Caspari sighed. “You flagged something last week. A dirty vendor chain.”

He did his job like he always had, quiet, clean, and a step ahead. Specialized contractor. Field intelligence and security audits. Find the gaps before they split wide open. Risk assessments on high-threat contractors. Physical security sweeps. Reading procurement logs like a battlefield map, where the money went, where the danger lived, and which son of a bitch was trying to bury it. He was good enough that they paid him through the nose to smell trouble before it got someone killed. Saved companies millions. Sometimes saved lives too.

He barked a bitter laugh. “I flagged a goddamn headache. Corporate shell vendors, rigged invoices, contractor games. I went through the proper channels. How did you get a hold of it?”

"That's not important," she said.

"Fucking CIA, and fuck you, Lynne."

“No, thanks. I like my guys pliant.”

Nash scoffed, the sound harsh, scraping her nerves.

Caspari’s eyes narrowed. “There’s a pattern buried inside OrdoTech. Ghost code. Disappearing money. Vendor shell games tied to a series of black-flag incidents no one was supposed to know about.” She paused. Measured. “One of our own died on the last one.” He didn’t blink. "You know about losing people, Nash."

That landed like a hook to the ribs. He knew the game. She’d dangled just enough truth to gut him and just enough guilt to make sure he grabbed the hook anyway. He closed his eyes, just for a second. The ache came quick, the memory sharper than it should have been.

Kento’s grin. The nickname they gave him. Superman. Gone. Just like the rest.

What she was proposing was illegal. The CIA was prohibited from operating on US soil under the National Security Act. His voice dropped. “Not interested. Find someone else.”

“What? You can’t?—”

“Refuse?” he said. “Last time I checked, I fought for truth, justice, and the American way.” The words cut like glass. He flinched inwardly. The pain flared again. Faces. Names. The click of comms just before everything went black.

Caspari’s jaw tightened. “I’m good friends with the owner of Black Kite,” she said.

His mouth kicked up in a sly half-grin. “You try to leverage me, Lynne, you better remember who the hell I am.” His voice was quieter now, more dangerous. “I could make three phone calls tomorrow and have three new jobs. If that’s all you’ve got?—”

“This could give you answers,” she said.

He went still. “What are you talking about?”

She stepped in. “Your memory gaps. The brothers you lost. There could be a trail still buried in the data, drone telemetry, wiped comm logs, fragmented black-box signals. You know how these ops work. Nothing gets wiped completely. If there’s a thread, it can be found.”

He stared at her, jaw tight. "You tried the stick," he said. "Now the carrot."

Caspari’s voice lowered, deliberate. "There may even be a visual log of what happened, Nash." His pulse kicked hard. He masked it, but she saw it anyway.

“You can’t run domestic ops. You can’t investigate American citizens without FBI approval.” His voice dropped, edged with steel. “You want me to gather intel, and I’d say this isn’t through the proper channels, Lynne.”

“That’s why we call it black, Nash.” Her voice was calm. Brutal. “You know shit always happens, and it gets buried. This time, this is for the right reasons, even if costs me federal time.” She paused. “I know you’d do anything for your brothers.” She took a step closer, and he glimpsed pain, desperation flickering in her eyes before it was masked. "You want to know what really happened."

Silence stretched between them, brittle as ice. He’d walk through fucking fire for the truth. He knew it. She knew it. Daily living was fucking torture, and it wasn’t even that he longed for relief. He wanted the truth. He needed the goddamned truth. What difference would it make if he was trapped in his home or a cell? Lynne’s mouth kicked up in a satisfaction that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She was damn good at what she did.

"I have someone else on this already," she added, voice smooth as glass. "Off-book. Someone who knows how to read code like most people breathe."

His voice went low, almost a growl. "Who?"

"Grace Harlan."

That name hit like an old alarm. He didn’t know her. But he knew the rep. Smart. Cool under pressure.

“I thought NCIS buried her.” She got a raw deal. Maybe they’d deep-sixed him, too. Maybe together, they could dig their way out.

“They did,” Caspari said. “But she’s looking for something, just like you. Together you might find what I need. Maybe what you both need to move on.”

He hated her for knowing exactly how to say it.

He hated himself more for wanting to believe it.

He stared at the floor, then back at her.

“I know the where. When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Our cover?”

“It’s already in place. Black Kite auditors. No one fucks with government oversight.” She paused. “She demanded first class. I’ll throw it in.”

He gave a long breath through his nose. “I need to clear?—”

“Already done,” she said. “You’re on vacation. Two weeks. That’s how long you have. She hunts the code. You contain the threat.” She took a breath, her voice going fierce, her eyes moist. It set him back on his heels. Caspari raw? “There’s something there, Nash. I can feel it in my black heart, connections, buried data, answers that the three of us would face charges, buck protocol, and fake credentials to find. I need it. You need it. Grace needs it. This is something we share .”

For a long moment, Nash didn’t move. Old instincts stirred, rough and stubborn, scraping against the hollow spaces inside him. Duty. Honor. Country. The words were more than slogans. He hadn’t been a good man lately. Hadn’t been a good anything. But he knew how to stand when it mattered.

He knew how to shoulder what was his, even when the weight felt like it would drive him into the ground. Leadership. Perseverance. Loyalty. The only easy day was yesterday. He could still hear the words, sharp and ruthless, hammered into him through the years and the wars and the brotherhood he’d lost.

He nodded, slow and controlled. “Hoo-yah.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “One more thing. Get me a clean gun in Colorado Springs. Something tactical, no piece of shit.”

Then he gestured toward the two men still on their knees. “Now vacate my premises and take your operatives with you. They might need a refresher at the Farm. I might be benched, but I’m never out of the fight, Lynne.”

She gave a half-smile. “I never thought you were. Someone will be in touch about the gun.”

“No piece of shit, Lynne.”

She nodded, cut them loose, gestured. Her men stood awkwardly and left without a word.

Nash didn’t lower his weapon until he heard their engine start and the tires crunch gravel. He stood in the kitchen doorway long after they were gone. Caspari was a professional liar. He knew that.

But if there was even a sliver of truth in what she offered, if Grace Harlan really could find the thread he had lost, then maybe, just maybe, he could sleep without the nightmares, the memories of his teammates' faces haunting him.

Maybe it was the start of something else.

He was only out two weeks of vaykay.

His brothers were worth that, and more.

The bedroom was a mess. Not chaotic, just lived in by someone who didn’t stay still long enough to care. Clean clothes he hadn’t folded yet were piled on the chair. An empty coffee cup on the dresser next to his dive watch.

He grabbed the duffel and started loading what he needed. Base layers. Tactical pants. A worn jacket. He shoved the boots in toe to heel and pressed them flat with his elbow. Nothing precise. Just fast. Efficient.

A memory surfaced anyway.

Just a flicker.

Him and Kento, back in Kandahar. A game of cards, someone cursing in three languages, dust caught in his teeth from laughing too hard. The sudden crash of reality as the briefing came down hard and clean. Go now. Hit fast. No time for regret.

He didn’t remember how that game ended. Just remembered Kento clapping him on the back and saying, “ Don’t die weird, man. You’ll haunt the hell outta me.”

That had been the last time they were both whole.

He raised his head, his gaze snagging on the prayer rug still in the same place he’d left it since… He moved, scooped up the rug. The cloth was folded small, edges fraying. Deep blue, stitched in warm ocher thread. A faded mihrab arched at its center, a prayer niche, shaped like a doorway pointing the way, flanked by a pattern so worn it almost looked like radiating stars, except Nash knew what they were. Sunflowers. Always turning toward the light.

It had been a gift from an old man during his last stable Afghanistan deployment, Ustad Hamid, a village calligrapher whose grandson Nash had pulled out of a blast zone. He’d pressed it into Nash’s hands with a quiet benediction. Even if you forget the words… the direction will remember.

He swallowed hard. If everything panned out, he’d finally get the truth. If it didn’t…before he could change his mind, he tucked it into his duffel. Then he stood. Shouldered the bag. Left the light on behind him.

On arrival, he was met outside the airport with a plain, forgettable rental car.

Inside the glovebox, tucked into a folded maintenance log, was the weapon Caspari had promised. A Glock 19. Clean. No scratch serial. No bullshit. It fit his hand like an old memory, solid, steady, reliable. He set it against his thigh as he drove, the weight grounding him more than the seatbelt ever could.

The hotel wasn’t much. Quiet. Clean. The kind of place that didn’t ask questions or offer anything extra. Just the basics. A bed. A bathroom. A door that locked.

Nash liked it more than he wanted to admit. He dropped his bag on the bed. There was always that first minute in a new place when the air didn’t know him yet. When the walls felt like they were waiting.

He sat on the edge of the bed and unlaced his boots slowly, his fingers pausing once when he reached for the second knot. His knee ached. Scar tissue and something worse. The med board had listed it as a mobility compromise. The SEALs had listed it as done.

He set the boots by the door. Aligned them. Then he tossed his black leather jacket over the chair and reached into the side pocket of his bag. The pill bottle rattled softly. The label was worn, the instructions barely legible. One pill. No more than twice a week. Take with water.

He swallowed it dry and lay back on the bed, arm across his eyes, body loose in the way that wasn’t natural but trained.

Just before the drug took hold, he reached again instinctively for the mat, pressing it to his chest for a second. A habit from a version of himself that used to believe. That used to kneel. Fading, earthy ocher barely showed anymore, but the color was still there, like a promise.

Sleep came. But not peace.

* * *

There was wind. Grit in his mouth. Screaming. Sand caught in his lashes, and blood on his gloves. He turned toward the sound, someone calling his name, and saw movement, a shape in the haze. It was Kento. It had to be. The gait. The way he moved. But his face was wrong. It kept shifting, breaking, like the memory couldn’t settle.

Then it was quiet. So quiet. Until the gunfire started again.

Nash reached for his weapon, but his hands were empty. His boots were gone. His body wouldn’t move. He was screaming for them to run, to fall back, but no one heard him. He turned in circles, breath catching, the sound of a drone overhead cutting through everything like a blade. It was all wrong. The angles. The colors. The time.

Then Kento turned. He had on a Superman outfit. The blue hurt his eyes, the red S on his chest blood red. Half his face was gone. He mouthed something. Why are you still here?

Nash sat up hard, sweat slick on his chest, breath tight in his lungs like he’d run ten miles uphill. The room was dark. The heat fired up. Somewhere outside, a bird called once, sharp and strange against the silence. He pressed a hand to his face, then dragged it down to his chest, grounding himself. He checked the clock. 4:27.

Too late for sleep. Too early for sense.

He got up, dressed, and pulled his laces tight with mechanical focus.

The air was cold, and his breath fogging when he stepped outside. The sky was just starting to lighten at the edges, pale blue creeping behind the ridge. The trail cut west behind the hotel, past a wire fence and through a dry brush path worn down by bored hotel guests and early-morning runners.

He took it at a steady pace. His legs warmed quickly, muscles clicking into memory. He passed a small bluff, then the edge of a drainage ditch, and kept going. The trail curved hard around the bluff, dry grass brushing his calves, the ground patchy with old snow and the broken remains of something that might have been sunflowers once. The dead stalks lay scattered and trampled, snapped underfoot by winter and whatever had come before him, their blackened heads bent low to the ground like they had given up reaching for the sun.

He didn’t slow down. Didn’t let himself look too closely. He followed without thought, without plan, breath deepening as the rhythm took over. This was how he stayed sane.

He ran until his breath hit that edge of burn, until his shirt stuck to his back, until his thoughts got quiet enough to blur. The nightmare still clung to his skin, but the wind pulled at it, piece by piece. The ache in his knee sharpened, then smoothed. His body knew how to keep going even when everything else inside him didn’t.

He couldn’t remember what happened in that op. Not all of it. Just flashes. Pieces. The parts the doctors told him were dream logic. Trauma filling in the blanks. But he remembered the sound. The break in Kento’s voice. The silence that followed.

He ran harder. Faster. Until there was no room left for memory. Only motion. Only sweat. Only the burn in his lungs and the pounding in his feet.

Changing gears away from the nightmare for the distraction, he thought he would meet her today. Grace Harlan. The analyst who got buried with the blame. He didn’t know what she looked like now. But would she see too much?

Nash rounded the bend at a dead sprint, lungs burning, shirt and sweatshirt soaked through, the hotel just starting to reappear through the trees when it happened.

He saw motion too late, a flash of dark leggings, a bright shock of yellow cutting across the winter-drab trail, and the glint of sunlit fire off impossible red hair. A shapely figure where there shouldn’t have been one.

His body reacted before his brain caught up. He twisted mid-stride, reached out, caught her as they collided, momentum slamming through him like a breacher charge. The only thought was to shield her. They went down hard, crashing through brittle grass and into a patch of sunflower stalks he’d seen only moments ago on the trail.

Dirt. Leaves. The sharp crackle of old stems. Elbow to ribs. The brush of skin too soft for this hard, cold ground. A hiss of breath. Then stillness.

She wasn’t struggling. She was just...there. Solid. Warm. A flash of color against the gray.

The first thing he registered was her softness, the curve of hip to thigh, the give of her ribs under his forearm, the heat of her body pressed against him, stubborn and alive in a world that had already given up.

For one surreal second, they just lay there, these stalks resilient beneath them, quietly withstanding their weight, the dry air around them holding its breath.

Birds kept chirping. Wind rustled through the trees. The ground shifted beneath him, and he wasn’t sure if it was those damn stalks or him.

Then she spoke, voice dry and perfectly level. “I wasn’t expecting a mountain to drop on me this morning.”

He blinked. Then laughed, short, sharp, breathless. God, she had a sense of humor.

Why the hell did that feel more dangerous than the impact? He pushed up on one arm and looked down at her. That was when it hit him.

The eyes got him first, green, dark jade rim around sage, sharp and unreadable. A kind of composed force that assessed, not softened. Watched him with an intensity like he was a puzzle needing to be solved.

Her face was elegant in a way that didn’t try. High cheekbones. Full mouth. The top lip gently bowed, the bottom one plump, kissable in a way he wasn’t supposed to notice. But did .

Her skin was warm with a pink undertone, the faint scar near her jaw nearly invisible unless you were looking for it. He was. For some reason, he was. She wasn’t wearing makeup.

Didn’t need it.

Her red and riotous hair didn’t belong with the stillness of her face. Loose and wild and reckless, a curtain of flame against her calm. A quiet, composed beauty that didn’t ask for attention but held it anyway. A paradox. A complication. A riddle he wasn’t ready for, but he couldn’t stop reacting. He shifted off her slowly and offered a hand. “You all right?” His voice came out rougher than expected.

She took it. Cool fingers. Firm grip. A spark jumped the moment their skin met. She stood, brushed off her pants like he hadn’t just steamrolled her. He followed suit, dragging his gaze away from the way her shirt had ridden up to expose a narrow strip of pale, freckled skin. Ya Allah . He scrubbed a hand through his hair.

“Sorry,” he said. “Wasn’t looking for company.”

“Clearly.” She looked him over once, chest to shoulders, to where his gray sweatshirt clung damp and unforgiving. Most of the time, he didn’t care how women looked at him. This wasn’t most of the time.

“You run like you’re chasing something,” she said.

He shrugged. “Or trying not to get caught.”

Her breath, steady and even, while her eyes watched him like a trigger she hadn’t decided to pull.

“You don’t look like a man easily caught.” She clamped that enticing bottom lip in white teeth and assessed him, then her mouth tilted, not quite a smile. Just a shift. An acknowledgment. He felt it in his spine. Something in him prickled. Tightened. It wasn’t attraction. Not just. It was a hit , gut-deep and inconvenient.

He didn’t know who she was. Didn’t care. At least he shouldn’t have. But her eyes… her mouth… the way she’d looked at him like she saw something ?—

He tamped it down hard. No. He wasn’t here for breath-stealing redheads or curiosity or whatever the hell made his skin tingle. He was here because somehow his teammates were dead, left behind, and they deserved the truth.

Back at the hotel, the shower was too small and ran hot for exactly three minutes before sputtering into something colder and meaner. Nash didn’t mind. The sting helped chase away the last edges of the dream still clinging to his ribs. He scrubbed hard, leaned his head against the wall for a beat longer than necessary. Damn, she had been so soft. He closed his eyes, the tile cool against his cheek, his body heating, stirring. He turned the cold back on, then stepped out dripping and half-blind from the freeze.

He toweled off with a curse and left the towel draped over the door. His shirt had hit the floor on the way in, landing somewhere near the sneakers he hadn’t bothered to untie before toeing them off. Back in the bathroom, he trimmed his beard close. Instead, he rubbed a faint trace of blended oil from his culture between his palms, something warm and dark, smoke threaded through with rose, and smoothed it through his beard, across the hollow of his throat, under his arms, and into the pulse points at his wrists.

He was halfway through buttoning his navy-blue shirt when her face drifted back into his mind. Again, immune to cold water and discipline. Not her body this time. Her voice. Dry as sand, warm as sun. That face like a locked room. Those eyes that had looked through him like she already knew what she’d find.

He snorted softly and shook his head. What were the odds? Why did a part of him wonder what it’d take to run into her again, this time on purpose? He shrugged it off. Pointless. What would she want with a broken SEAL, a man whose past was a shattered reel of images he couldn’t line up, whose future looked like a door already closing?

He grabbed his black leather jacket and keys and headed down to the rental. They’d offered him a driver. He declined. He preferred handling his own coming and going. Fewer questions. Fewer chances to be surprised.

The morning air was crisp, mountain-bright, the kind of dry that cracked your knuckles and cleared your head. He took the turn onto the main road, let the wheels eat the distance, passed a sign for Garden of the Gods, and didn’t slow down. The OrdoTech Strategies facility rose out of the red earth like a bunker dressed up in glass, slick lines, dark panels, too clean to trust.

Security let him in without a pause. No badge. No questions. Just a nod and opening doors. He scanned the ceiling. Drones in the corners. Eyes everywhere. Which meant Caspari’s audit story was in place and working as intended.

A man in a fitted blazer met him at the front, said nothing but pointed him down a hall and through a secondary checkpoint. The place smelled like paper and power, like recycled air and cold coffee. They led him to a glass-front office.

“This’ll be your workspace,” the man said, then stepped back into the hall.

Nash exhaled once, noting a woman with impossibly red hair… No…couldn’t be.

She turned in her seat, sleeves rolled to the wrist. No expression to read except for the clarity in her gaze.

“Grace Harlan,” she said, her gaze dragging deliberately over him. “If you work like you run,” she added, “we’re going to get along just fine.” Her voice still held that dry edge, like she had learned early on that silence could be a weapon but words, when used right, cut deeper. “We’re chasing something.”

He wasn’t sure if she meant the case. Or him.